March 2018

Former RTÉ producer has been sentenced to 18 months

Former RTÉ producer Kieran Creaven has been sentenced to 18 months in prison after he admitted to grooming a 13-year-old girl and attempting to engage a child in sexual activity.

The sexual predator appeared before Leeds Crown Court for sentencing today.

He received 18 months for attempting to meet a child after sexually grooming her and 12 months for attempting to incite a child into sexual activity.

The sentences will run concurrently.

Leeds Crown Court heard that Creaven had an obsession with pornography and watched sexually explicit videos involving children as young as eight.

In one exchange with the decoy he said he wanted her “underneath the covers to snuggle her” and to “hug her, smell her hair and kiss her”.

When arrested on November 18 following a sting operation by paedophile hunters Predator Exposure, he had a list of names of young girls, two boxes of condoms and two mobile phones.

The court also heard how he attempted to travel to Leeds on an earlier date to meet what he believed to be a child, but that this trip was cancelled due to illness.

Creaven had been employed by RTÉ since 1998 and worked on several high-profile events, including its coverage of the 2012 London Olympics. He has since been fired by RTÉ.

The grooming took place over a four-month period in 2017 in which he sent vile messages to a person he believed to be a 13-year-old girl

December 2017

TV producer who was confronted by ‘paedophile hunters’ in Leeds admits sex offences

A television sports producer has admitted sex offences after he was exposed by an online child protection team when he travelled to the UK to meet what he thought was a 13-year-old girl.

At Leeds Crown Court today (Dec 18) Kieran Creaven, 55, who is originally from Ballinasloe, but now of Dublin admitted attempting to meet a child following grooming for a sexual purpose and of attempting to cause or incite a child to engage in sexual activity, namely kissing and cuddling.

Creaven, who works for the Irish broadcaster RTE, flew from Ireland to Leeds to meet up at The Queens Hotel with the “girl”, who was in fact a fake online identity created by a decoy adult member of the Leeds based ‘Predator Exposure’ group

The offences were said to have taken place from July 1 – when the defendant first contacted the “girl” online – to November 18 when he arrived at the hotel in the city.

The court heard Creaven sent messages of a sexual nature to the girl, as well as an explicit photograph and had travelled from Dublin to Leeds to meet her.